Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen

[huisache]

Larry McMurtry wrote this rumination on storytelling a few years ago but I just picked it up in clearance at half price books this weekend and think it is one of the best pieces he's written. He talks about growing up on the south plains and a cattle ranch and his ranch family and Texas and writing and a lot about his home town, ARcher City.

Walter Benjamin was a German of the early twentieth century who ruminated a lot. McM uses that as a jumping off point to wander around about story telling and memory and talks about sitting at the DQ in AC and watching and listening.

In the first fifty pages I've read some about Lonesome Dove and what he thought of it, about an old lady who had been traded for some skunk pelts when she was 13 and never talked, about Teddy Blue, about the Comanches, about the rest of his novels and how he writes them, about Bismarck's chief political rival and how a town in west Texas came to be named after him and a slew of other things.

If you enjoy reading a well read man taking his mind out for a walk, this is recommended.

 

[RomaVicta]

Thanks for the recommendation. I think you sold me.

I just read Comanche Moon which is quite good. I mainly read it because I've been reading about the Comanches and early Texas history the last few years. His novel captures the history quite well.

 

[huisache]

ONe of the things he touches on re the plains: he thinks J.Evetts Haley's bio of Charles Goodnight is the best rancher bio ever written. Have to agree. Goodnight was a bit of a model for the character of Capt. Call in Lonesome Dove.

 

[MarylandHorn]

Walter Benjamin is one of his better autobigraphical books and I really enjoy his perspective on small town Texas. He follows that subject in his series following the character Duane, who I think was first introduced in The Last Picture Show and continues through to the most recent Rhino Ranch, which is about the only of his books I have not read (yet).

 

[ProdigalHorn]

That would be interesting - I remember way back taking the Southwest Lit class at UT and we went to hear him talk as a group. I remember Prof. Graham telling us, "but if you're going to ask questions, don't ask about Lonesome Dove. He doesn't really like talking about it." This was way before the miniseries, so don't know if his attitude about the book has changed.

Comanche Moon was pretty good, not AS good, but it's been a long time since I read it.

 

[Bevo Incognito]

I have it and have read it and can't believe that anybody else has.

It's excellent. A profound meditation on family and loss and and life in the Panhandle on the death of the oral tradition.